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Elimination of upper willamette river hatchery steelhead

4K views 21 replies 12 participants last post by  SSPey 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Well, first off, the link doesn't work. I get a 403 Forbidden out of it.

Be that as it may, I might add there are two sides to every coin, or story so to speak. While some may bemoan the loss of a hatchery, there are others, Bill McMillan among them, who are strong advocates of getting rid of hatcheries whenever possible, so as not to dilute the gene pool. :Eyecrazy:
 
#5 ·
Like the rebellious man from the state of Jefferson there are two sides to this story one to keep are summer steelhead and one to get rid of them!!
if you fish for them you want to keep them if you are on the side that thinks that the gene pool needs to be preserved for the true native steelhead
then you are on the other side!
the thing is that the fact of the mater is the native winter steelhead and salmon have all ready interbred hatchery fish and hatchery fish with native fish!!
Also MONEY will be the key factor here!!! if there is no summer fish to go fishing for you, me and the other guy will not go to the sporting goods store
to buy gear!! then if it gets real bad trying to catch a fish that is no longer there then why buy a license and tags to fish?
If you go back in time before any dam in the pacific north west if you wanted a steelhead or salmon you would have to fish for them only when they ran in the winter time!!
Again with all the commercial fisheries out there and with all the dams with no fish passage on them and the very pitiful number of fish that make it to any spawning ground?? Well in time you can figure out what will happen!!! NO fish LEFT!!!!
way to many things have to happen to fix this
commercial fisheries have to get out of the rivers
dams have to build fish ladders
Time for the fish to rebuild there population
then and only then they could shut down the hatcheries
oh and lots and lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$$
am I wrong or right????

Bill
 
#6 ·
The timing is pretty good because the Army Corps is looking to contract out the operation of some of its hatcheries to a private companies. ODFW is looking to bid on them I Believe but the Law suit could drive this in another direction. I have mixed feeling about this because I grew up fishing these fish and loosing them means loosing a major fishery in the valley. Like Merlin said, money will be the driver on this. It should be interesting to watch no matter how it turns out.

Mike

FYI- I can get the link to work on all my electronics so I'm not sure why it wont work for some.
 
#7 ·
Two sides indeed.

This is my home water where I grew up fishing with my dad. My best memories all come from the North Santiam. Summer steelhead were not native and they stopped putting winter hatchery fish in back in the early 90's. Even after eliminating that hatchery strain the native fish returns haven't increased at all (200 fish is average). That's almost 30 years ago with no improvements in wild fish return. The army corps also built a $20 million dollar fish trap several years ago so they can capture and reduce any passage into the upper river where they spawn.

I'm also not sure why two organizations that seem to have no interest in fish (only boating and birding) are filing a lawsuit.

I don't know how long it takes for wild fish to return after a hatchery run has been removed? Clearly greater than 30 years on the NS.

I don't want to see any wild steelhead runs decline. That would be devastating. Even if they are small. Believe it or not there were tiny willamette tribs that meandered through farm country that used to be teeming with wild winter steelhead in the 70s and 80s and they are gone. Not because of hatcheries but because of riparian destruction and farming chemicals and wild fish harvest. These places are so small there are probably 10 people in the state that knew about them.

I also know that the little towns and businesses in that corridor (mehama, gates) have relied heavily upon sport fishing and logging as major sources of income. They will take a major hit as they always have and will erode even more.

Feel free to correct any mistakes - I am happy to have a dialogue around this.
 
#8 ·
So, it doesn't look like this lawsuit would affect my homewater, the upper Willamette from dexter dam through Eugene and the McKenzie. I am a wild fish advocate, but the convenience of the hatchery summer run in my local ditch has been a great hold over between my trips to more storied waters. If my my local hatchery run were eliminated, I suppose I would adapt and skate up the local trout.

Todd
 
#11 ·
Ha! I was fishing a ninja wang on one of my favorite walk in spots on the peninsula. High water boulder garden area that is just prime. Has a nice soft inside shoulder under a cut bank with a few large cedars. The run is about 50 yards but tapers into a great far bank tail out. Started in the head of the run with no takers. Started getting a bit dark so I worked quickly down the run and sure enough, big boil/splash on the hang down underneath the cut bank. Super trouty spot but just holds steelhead when the water is up. I was shocked because I rarely fish dries before September! Of course I tried a comeback wet but it was over. Super cool evening.
 
#15 ·
If a fish goes to sea for 2-3 years and returns, that means it survived a dangerous world at sea , as far as I concerned it's then a wild fish regardless of it's genes. If you don't like hatchery fish, pick out the hatchery one to kill and eat and just release the wild ones. Don't stop making fish just cause somebody doesn't like it....and remember after the first hatchery fish comes back to a certain river and begins to spawn....Now the whole gene pool is diluted....Isn't it kinda late? I would rather have a few diluted fish then none at all. that's my 2 cents

Carl Blackledge
 
#19 ·
2023. Are there any updates on this subject? Can't really find anything on Google. I am wondering if the hatchery releases are gone forever or coming back too the upper willamette.i see only 18 summer steelhead we counted this year at Dexter dam and zero recorded at leaburg dam. Hatchery and wild coexist with good management so why not increase smolts numbers?
 
#20 ·
Hatchery summer steelhead smolts raised at Leaburg intended for spring 2021 release got released early in Fall 2020 by emergency due to the Holiday Farm Fire. It certainly hurt returns of 2023 McKenzie adults. On top of that, all Willamette trib numbers have been down in recent years, ostensibly due to poor ocean conditions. Smolt releases have scarcely changed but adult runs have tanked. Adding more hatchery smolts isn’t gonna increase the ocean‘s carrying capacity.
 
#21 ·
After doing some digging it appears that they are releasing less smolts than in past years so maybe increase back too the original numbers? And what changes have been made in the release of the smolts,was it time of or location of release? Seems like whatever they were doing in the past worked much better than the current management. I also think the predators eating smolts or adult fish do not care if there food has a clipped fin or not so putting more clippers out there may in reality save some wild fish.especally the winter wild run up here that never make it past the sealions down at the falls.i haven't seen a wild Winter steelhead on little fall creek in almost 8 years.
 
#22 · (Edited)
After doing some digging it appears that they are releasing less smolts than in past years so maybe increase back too the original numbers? And what changes have been made in the release of the smolts,was it time of or location of release? Seems like whatever they were doing in the past worked much better than the current management.
Smolt releases have scarcely declined. See ODFW doc/data below. The problem is poor survival.

The 12 year average release into all Upper Willamette tribs has been 595,600 smolts. The current release is 547,500. That’s a pretty small change in smolt numbers, yet adult returns have absolutely tanked due to poor survival. The ocean has been in the toilet. Wild returns are also down throughout most of the nearby PNW rivers, including some precariously record low returns of wild winters in the Willamette system.

Throwing more smolt releases into bad conditions will not increase adult returns.

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